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Month: July 2012

If you were wondering what all Office 2013 was going to pack in, don’t forget about all of the fantastic touch integration for the version of Office that will be built in to future Windows RT tablets & Microsoft’s own Surface for Windows RT, which will include a version of Microsoft Office.

Well, if you are interested in downloading the preview version of Office 2013, or what Microsoft has taken to calling “the New Office” (kind of like “new iPad”), you can visit the Microsoft Office Preview site and click the green “Sign Up” button to enroll and download the preview.

Jonny Fritz, AKA Jonny Corndawg, is a country singer who knows that Nashville sound as well as anybody, but he also knows how to play songs that appeal to more and more people. He doesn’t take the “hard right” stance that a lot of country singers do, and doesn’t sing about how great America is and how great it is to swill beer all day. In fact, in his song Exercise, from a previous album, the chorus includes “understand that immigrants have the hardest lives.”

The opening track to 2011’s Down on the Bikini Line album is Shaved Like A Razor. It was the first song I had ever heard from Jonny Corndawg, and I was immediately hooked by a classic barn-dance type song with great guitar solos, fantastic fiddle playing, and a kind-hearted twang in Jonny’s voice. Played on a local radio station here in Rochester, NY, they announced that later that night the band would be playing in town. Off I went to see Jonny and company at a local venue. I was not disappointed. The band is down to earth, and Jonny really seems to enjoy what he does. They literally travel the country on their tour, crashing wherever they can after each show, playing to small crowds and recognizing their fans who have seen them more than once.

Jonny isn’t afaid to shine the spotlight on the occasional absurdity of country music, as in the track When a Ford Man Turns to Chevy, as the line immediately following the title line continues with “an angel gets it’s wings, and the babies they won’t never cry no more.” Undercover Dad is a touching song that Jonny sings about wanting to get to know his child better, and the lessons he has learned about parenting by being out on the road seeing younger crowds at shows every night, learning what he can expect to have to face someday.

If Amazon isn’t for you, you can get Down on the Bikini Line and other albums direct from the band’s Bandcamp site, so go get your fix!

Did you know you can show off your Xbox Live Avatar or Gamerpic in forum pictures, signatures, websites, and even emails you send out? And the best part is, you don’t have to download it and update it whenever you change something on your avatar, like a hat or a hoodie or something. No, it’s very simple. You can modify any of the following URLs, put in your own gamertag, and show off your avatar. Just replace my Gamertag, NuAngel, with your own. If you have a space in your gamertag, the easiest thing to do is to replace the space with %20. In other words, Major Nelson would become Major%20Nelson.

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/NuAngel/avatarpic-l.png

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/NuAngel/avatarpic-s.png

http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/NuAngel/avatar-body.png

Some of you may remember when the “New Xbox Experience” introduced Avatars in 2008. Back then I built a list of fairly popular Gamertags and their avatars, the gallary still stands, for the most part – although a few of the users have changed their gamertags since that time.

Video of the week, found this on YouTube… it’s certainly not legal, and you won’t find the links here, but they are on the youtube page if you follow the video to YouTube. But it’s pretty fascinating… and I can’t say if this Mountain Lion release works or not, but I do know that some of the other things that this group of hackers, SoulDevTeam.net, has released have worked for me in the past!

It’s not that I don’t have games to play, it’s just that I’m having a hard time playing them. Maybe someone can tell me if the original Saint’s Row on the Xbox 360 was a particularly buggy game? I’ve been trying to get caught up on ‘games I should’ve played” lately, and picked up the Saint’s Row Double Pack. Since then, I’ve grabbed some other games from years past, like last year’s Batman: Arkham City, another game from the era of the original PlayStation, and an NES game… I’ve got lots of things to catch up on – but for some reason the original Saint’s Row keeps locking up my Xbox. The background audio keeps playing, the video freezes, the whole thing just locks.

I’m starting to fear the worst, because this isn’t the first game this has happened on, it’s just the most recent, and most frequent. I thought these “slim” Xbox 360’s were supposed to alleviate the pain? My original 20GB Xbox 360 had to be sent in for a Red Ring failure. My replacement unit is still trucking along, although it has a lot of disc read errors – it went to a friend when I picked up a 120GB black Elite unit. The Elite was having lots of disc read errors when I sold it (with full disclosures to the buyer of potential repair being needed down the road) and picked up an Xbox 360 “S” unit last year. And I’m beginning to think this unit is going to have to go in for a little servicing.

Now, one of the biggest reasons I’m not totally losing my mind over this latest problem is that it has been hot lately. Even with my AC unit about 5 feet from my 360 (not blowing directly on it, but they’re in the same room!), I have a hard time keeping it in the 70’s. Perhaps the 360 is just getting a bit too warm. It should have lots of room to breathe, but it’s just keeps locking up on me. If the problems continue once I’m playing a different game and we’re back in to some reasonable temperatures, then I’ll be a bit more worried. But for now, I’m just hoping I’m not a 5th time victim of some kind of problem in the long relationship I’ve had with my Xbox 360. I still love the thing, but keeping it has become a labor of love.

I’m sure some PS3 lover out there wants to rub this in my face, but remember that my Fat PS3 bit the dust by freezing up (not a “YLOD” or anything else, it just froze), and my second one mostly collects dust while I watch the occasional BluRay on it (serioysly, I own about 10 BluRay movies and 2 PS3 games – I have more PS1 games to play on the thing!). Call me a “fanboy” if you want, but the Xbox brand will always have a spot in my home. I just genuinely love the Xbox Live service… and the controller.

Now, if you want to put Xbox Live and a few Halo games on a PlayStation, we’ll talk!